Journey to the core
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Watch as scientists drill for an ice core in Antarctica. Video footage courtesy Australian Antarctic Division

The Mercury

08 May 2014

News/Tasmania

An AAD expedition member with one of the ice cores. Picture: AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC DIVISIONSource: Supplied

ANTARCTIC science’s holy grail of a million-year climate record is a step closer following a successful ice-drilling expedition.

Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) scientists have returned to Hobart with two tonnes of ice-cores dating back 2000 years and say a record of the climate over a million years could be achievable within a decade.

The Australians were part of an international team that drilled down 300m at a site 500km inland from Casey Station.

AAD chief scientist Dr Nick Gales says, as well as providing a snapshot of the climate over the past 2000 years, the drill is a step towards the goal of a million.

“We have to find exactly the right area where there’s very deep ice and it’s moving very slowly,” Dr Gales told reporters at the AAD’s headquarters near Hobart.

Dr Gales said China had already begun some deeper drilling and an international effort could be underway in five to 10 years. It would involve drilling around 4km — and cost much more than the $10 million price of the latest expedition.

“The more we learn now, the faster we can move towards agreeing internationally where that site is and pulling together a big project of many countries,” Dr Gales said.

A team of 19 set up camp for five weeks in temperatures as low as -30C to complete last summer’s drill, the first to such a depth by Australian scientists since the early 1990s.

Comments on this story

Pseudoscience at best! Certainly not something you would want to rely when planning future actions. Only fools and greenies now claim that this is "real", surely?

Andrew Grubb of Hobart Posted at 8:46 AM May 09, 2014

So the science is not settled as claimed, surprise surprise.With the billions spent on this indusrty globally they still cant model the past but claim their models can predict the future even though their current models have failed to do that. Science or voodoo!! Not with my tax dollars enough is enough